“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She made me promise.”
Sadie felt suddenly intrusive.
“I should leave.”
“No.”
Both Gideon and Caleb spoke at once.
Caleb looked at her.
“Ma said you were supposed to be here.”
Sadie stopped breathing.
“What?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Before she died. She kept saying a name.”
Gideon slowly pushed himself upright.
“Sadie Whitcomb.”
The room tilted.
Sadie gripped the table.
“You knew my name before Oakhaven.”
Gideon did not deny it.
Anger struck so fast it almost felt clean.
“You came looking for me.”
“Yes.”
“You stood in that street pretending you needed any wife.”
“I did need a wife.”
“But you wanted me.”
“I was told to find you.”
“By Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
Sadie backed away.
“You let me marry you without telling me?”
“I knew nothing except that Rebecca said if she died, I was to go to Oakhaven, find Sadie Whitcomb, and bring her home if she would come willingly.”
Sadie’s eyes burned.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I swear.”
Caleb disappeared into Rebecca’s room.
He returned dragging a dark wooden trunk.
A brass lock hung from its front.
From beneath his shirt, Caleb produced a tiny key.
“My mother gave me this the night she died.”
No one spoke.
He unlocked the trunk.
Inside lay folded dresses, several bundles of letters, a Bible, and a thick brown ledger wrapped in oilcloth.
At the very top rested an envelope.
Three words were written across it.
For Sadie Whitcomb.
Sadie sank into a chair.
She knew Rebecca’s handwriting from labels in the pantry.
There was no mistake.
Her fingers shook so badly Caleb had to help tear the envelope.
The letter inside was twelve years old.
Sadie read.
Then stopped.
Then began again.
Dear Mrs. Whitcomb,
You do not know me.
My name is Rebecca Hale.
And if you are reading this, I have failed to tell you the truth sooner.
Sadie’s vision blurred.
She forced herself onward.
Your baby did not die.
The cabin vanished.
There was only that sentence.
That impossible sentence.
Your baby did not die.
“No.”
The word came from somewhere deep inside her.
Gideon’s face changed.
Caleb stopped breathing.
Sadie read again.
On March seventeenth, twelve years ago, you delivered a living boy in the back room of Dr. Mercer’s clinic in Oakhaven. I know because I was there.
Sadie made a terrible sound.
A memory exploded through her.
Rain hammering the window.
Her own screaming.
Dr. Mercer telling her not to look.
Amos holding her shoulders.
A baby crying.
One cry.
Sharp.
Alive.
Then silence.
She had begged.
Let me see him.
Dr. Mercer said there was nothing to see.
Later, Mrs. Pritchard had sat beside her bed and explained that God sometimes took babies for reasons women could not understand.
Sadie had believed her.
She had spent twelve years believing her.
The letter continued.
I was seventeen and assisting Dr. Mercer because my aunt worked in his household. I watched Mrs. Pritchard carry your son from the clinic while you were unconscious.
Sadie’s hands went numb.
Caleb had gone white.
The child was taken to a mission house outside St. Louis where infants were placed with wealthy families in exchange for donations. You were not the first mother.
